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98 foreigners, temporarily residing in China, must submit themselves to the barbarous code of Chinese penal laws and to the corrupt judicial process of Chinese tribunals, his open and undisguised determination to hold one set of foreign merchants responsible with their lives for the doings of others not under their control, his absurd affirmation of the sovereignty of China over Great Britain and other foreign nations, and finally his persistent refusal to give to Her Majesty's Representative in China a dignified official status, all these measures of Lin, as the typical representative of Chinese mandarindom, served only to force upon the English people, aroused at last from their apathy by the startling news of the imprisonment of the whole foreign community, the conviction that some serious alterations in British relations with the Chinese Empire were necessary and that British commerce could never be safely carried on, and certainly could never flourish in a country where British property are alike at the mercy of a capricious, corrupt and inordinately conceited Government. Driven out from Canton, and feeling that British trade with China must henceforth be carried on within sight of British shipping and close to the sea, on which Great Britain can hold her own against all comers, both Elliot and the British merchants now turned a deaf ear to all Lin's proposals for a reopening of trade, even under new regulations, at Canton or Whampoa. Forty-two British firms signed (May 23, 18891839 [sic]) a Memorial addressed to Lord Palmerston, in which they complained of the insincerity of the Canton Authorities in their dealing with the opium trade which these Authorities had themselves encouraged and supported for so many years, and of the violent measures of Commissioner Lin which made it a matter of pressing necessity to place the general trade of British subjects in China upon a secure and permanent basis. British merchants had no wish now to return to Canton under any circumstances. Their eyes were turned in the direction of Macao.

Even before the imprisonment of the foreign community at Canton had come to an end, Elliot had managed, with great difficulty and risks, to send a message from Canton (April 13,